


You and I, We Used to be Beautiful

by Chicory



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 21:34:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1564859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chicory/pseuds/Chicory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A nebulous AU at an end of an unspecified war. Arthur wakes up when Merlin crawls onto his pallet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You and I, We Used to be Beautiful

**Author's Note:**

> This is yet another old fanfiction, which I totally scrapped and rewrote from the beginning. It's not really set anywhere within the canon because I have not seen Merlin past Season Three (because Finnish TV hates me) so just consider it an AU?
> 
> DISCLAIMER: I own nothing but this drabble and all the mistakes herewithin.

Arthur started awake the instant someone lifted the covers and let the cold air in. A second later that someone tried to crawl onto the pallet beside him.

His hand went immediately for his blade beneath the pillow and curled around its hilt, ready to stab the impudent fool to death, but then Merlin's voice came out of the shapeless figure hovering before him.

Arthur should have known. There weren't any other suicidal bastards around.

"Shh," Merlin whispered. "'S just me."

Arthur let go of the blade and slumped back down. "Merlin," he sighed in exasperation, rubbing a hand over his eyes, far too exhausted and sore for this, whatever this was. "Mind telling me the reason why you are creeping into my bed in the middle of the night?"

And it better be good, he didn't add. He felt it was self-evident.

But instead of answering—because he was a recalcitrant sod—Merlin finished settling himself in and, thankfully, arranged the covers back around them properly. Their faces were close, Arthur could feel the tickle of his warm breath, see the dark smudge of lashes over snow-pale cheeks. Very carefully Merlin laid a hand over the bandages around Arthur's abdomen, still wet with blood.

He'd lost half of his personal guard after he had gotten that wound, in a desperate attempt to retreat. It had been Merlin's magic that ensured he hadn't lost them all.

Arthur tensed, and then forced himself to relax when it seemed Merlin would withdraw like a spooked deer. For a moment Merlin hesitated, then he began to move his thumb in a mindless pattern over the wound, a barely there touch. Arthur shivered; he told himself it was from the residual chill.

"Merlin?"

They didn't do this. They had never done this. Not back at Camelot when Arthur had found himself sometimes looking at Merlin, not as a servant or as a friend but as something else; how he'd noted the slope of his neck or the curve of his collarbone or the long grace of his fingers. Not when the world had decayed into madness and grief or when the war took them all away for years at a time and everything had seemed too hopeless to go on and Arthur had just wanted to bury himself in the promised comfort of Merlin's warmth.

This wasn't what they did.

Merlin exhaled, breath pluming white and crystalline in the air before dispersing into nothing, like the fragile thing it was, and Arthur could feel the shiver of it on his lips. Merlin's eyes were downcast, lost in some far away place only he could see.

It was quiet.

Snow crunched outside as sir Cyril—the knight assigned to guard Arthur's tent—shifted and moved in a futile effort to warm himself. Another knight muttered curses while taking a leak, somewhere near the forest at back, his teeth chattering as he did so. Snores were carried across the campground in an errant breeze, which reached its frigid fingers inside Arthur's tent, flicked the flap of the entry upwards in a capricious exhale. It smelled of winter, of smoke and frost.

Then Merlin raised his eyes and stared at Arthur, unwaveringly, stared right through him as if he could see the world and beyond it, and just Arthur, always just Arthur. Not the King, not the Destiny, not the Legend. Just him.

"Tomorrow..." he said, slow and precise, "...tomorrow you are going to die."

His eyes were wide, eerie in the darkness, wells of unfathomable grief.

Arthur vaguely thought if he should feel upset. Afraid when faced with the rather sudden knowledge of his impending demise. Something.

But all he felt was exhaustion, prickled by mild irritation because he wasn't dead yet and Merlin had no right to grieve him already. Arthur had always been aware of his mortality, had known it as a knight and as an only heir. It was hardly new.

He could no longer remember if there ever had been a time when he'd believed in his own immortality.

"Well," he said. "I must be the only person who can arrange their funeral beforehand. I swear, if you let Gwaine sing I will come back and smack you beyond the grave."

Merlin gave a laugh; a short, wild, broken noise. "It's not funny, you ass," he breathed. "It's not funny. I can't—"

He closed his eyes, skin pulled taut, spoke in a strained voice as if it hurt to get the words out, "I can't watch you die, Arthur. You have no idea—"

He stopped once more, then drew in a shaky breath and opened his eyes and _looked_ at Arthur. Looked at him like there was nothing else worth seeing.

Arthur could feel heat creep up his cheeks. He inhaled, deep and even as he'd learned as a young boy when the sword had been almost too heavy to lift and he'd been convinced he could not move any longer, his muscles spasming and burning their strain after a long day at the training grounds. When it had seemed that no matter what he did he could never please his father. Arthur breathed until he was certain he could speak past the barbed constriction in his throat. He offered Merlin a smile which faltered at the end. It was the only thing he could do. Console him over his death that had not happened yet but would.

Tomorrow.

He hadn't really imagined it would be so soon.

"Everyone will die someday, Merlin."

Merlin's face crumbled, wretched and miserable. "Not me," he whispered. "You'll die and I'll be stuck here. I'll be stuck here, having failed you."

Arthur tried a laugh but it fractured, falling heavy in the silence like a stone as brittle as glass. "Merlin," he said. Tentatively he laid his hand on Merlin's cheek, caressed the arch of his cheekbone with the pad of his thumb. It was the most intimate touch he had ever allowed himself, and he felt awkward at its novelty. "You haven't failed me. You have _never_ failed me. You are quite possibly the most irritating person I've had the displeasure to meet, completely useless as a manservant and don't think I've forgotten how you lied to me for _years_."

Merlin gave a tremulous laugh, a suspicious sheen to his eyes.

"You never listen, you never obey and you recklessly risk your life for me like the idiot you are." Arthur leaned forward, nuzzled down the bridge of his nose. "But you've never failed me, understand?"

There used to be a time when Arthur thought of Merlin as incompetent and weak and fragile. When he used to think that Merlin needed Arthur's protection. Needed Arthur to save him and guard him from harm. When Arthur saw Merlin as more than a servant and less than a friend. That time had long since been gone, lost in the years when they had still been boys, still young and so carefree in their assumed greatness.

Arthur missed the simplicity of those days.

"Arthur," said Merlin, and his voice broke down on a sob. "Arthur, Arthur, _Arthur_." He burrowed himself closer, with minute shifts, like if he just did it slow enough then Arthur couldn't possibly notice.

Arthur sighed and draped his arm over Merlin, wincing at the pull on his wound. He could feel Merlin's breath still before he relaxed and aligned their bodies comfortably together. Merlin was far too thin, had been since the beginning. The idiot was incapable of taking proper care of himself, and Arthur dreaded to think what would happen when there was no one left to look after him. Arthur let his hand sink into his hair, smoothing the unruly curls down absently. He felt drained, like a hollow shell left to rot. "I'm here, Merlin. I'm still here."

For a few minutes Merlin gasped wetly against his neck and then he said, muffled into Arthur's skin, "D'you—d'you remember when I told you about everything? About Kilgharrah and the Destiny and Morgana and Mordred? Everything?"

As if Arthur could forget. He had listened then while he'd watched the shapes Merlin's hands had created in the air, agitated and wild, his words coming in fast spurts, desperate to be heard. It had been something Arthur had learned from Merlin; the simple yet necessary art of it. He'd listened even though he had been furious at the thought that all this, this misery and destruction and death were all nothing but the whims of gods Arthur had never really believed in.

Arthur smiled. "You talk so much, Merlin, and yet you say so very little. I can't possibly remember every little thing you tell me."

Merlin hacked a surprised laugh. "Kilgharrah said—He said it was my destiny to protect you. But that was a lie, wasn't it? My destiny," he said, bitter disgust evident in his voice, "was to lead you to this moment. To your death."

Abruptly Merlin dislodged Arthur's arm around him to clasp his face between his hands. He held on fiercely and steadily as if by his touch alone he could force Arthur to stay in this moment, to stay alive, to stay _there_ with him. "I can't watch you die," he said slowly, enunciating each word with care.

There was a meaning there, something Merlin tried to convey without saying it aloud, and it took Arthur a while to figure out what it could be.

Arthur's heart gave a thud like the toll of a bell.

"Not that. You _can't_ , Merlin. You know what would—what would happen if you did." Arthur swallowed because surely Merlin couldn't—not for him—not for Arthur. He had already given so much, more than Arthur had known he had taken. Everything Merlin had been and was and would be. He could hardly repay Merlin even if he had a thousand of lifetimes to do it. Arthur refused to take any more.

Merlin's hands were gentle; he stroked the skin behind Arthur's ears as he touched their foreheads together. "I can't watch you die. I've seen it too many times. I've—and I can't stop it. Not this time. You'll just die and I'm supposed to let it happen." His voice was wrecked, wavering on the edge of collapse. "I don't care if I need to break the world in order to save you. I don't. I'll do it. I'll do it a hundred times, a thousand times if I have to."

He was still such a bloody liar.

Arthur thought of the day when Merlin had kneeled in front of him and laid down all of his magic for Arthur willingly, gladly, as if it had been nothing. As if he had been waiting for that day forever and in the end he'd only had a meagre gift to offer and Arthur had deserved something far greater.

Arthur had kneeled right down on that cold stone floor with him, indescribably humbled by this boy's loyalty, his love that shone bright and beautiful and was worth more than hundreds of kingdoms together. Arthur had given his fealty and oath in return while Merlin had stared, shocked and incredulous, a ridiculous grin stealing across his face.

I pledge my life to you.

Arthur thought of that breathless smile—as if he had given Merlin the greatest gift in turn. He could still remember it vividly, the light and shadows sliding over Merlin's features, in his eyes as time had seemed to halt around them and narrow into each other.

Arthur had almost kissed Merlin then, had already leaned forward to do it, only to be stopped by the sudden, blurry image of Guinevere in his mind.

He thought of the way Merlin sometimes vanished for days and weeks, walking in between worlds he alone could see. How he came back and seemed a bit more ageless, a bit more otherworldly, a bit more _older_. How Merlin seemed to exist here and there and nowhere. How he seemed to bend the very fabric of reality and time to suit his whims. How he was not quite a man and not quite a god. How he was _Merlin_ ; a warlock and a dragon lord and a seer, and Merlin; Arthur's fumbling, silly manservant, just for him and just with him. How Merlin would lay the very world and the moon and the stars at Arthur's feet if he so wished and asked him to.

But more than that, how he would lay down his life for Arthur without a thought. Not because he had been trained to do so, but because he thought Arthur was worth it.

His life is worth less than yours. Never had his father been more wrong.

Arthur thought of Camelot which had been built on lies and blood and death. Thought of Albion which had carried on Camelot's cursed legacy. Thought of his sister he had lost before he'd even known he had one. Thought of the little boy he had saved and who was destined to kill him, out of insanity and bitter grief too great for a child to bear. Thought of Guinevere and how she sometimes looked at Lancelot when she thought Arthur wouldn't _see_.

Then Arthur looked at Merlin. At his high cheekbones and his ridiculous ears, his blue eyes and long eyelashes, his delicate lips. He looked at the pale light reflected in his eyes. Saw the fragile hope, eternal love and unfaltering devotion in their depths. Merlin would let him die if Arthur so decided. He would let him die even though it would kill him as well.

Really. He was impossible, insubordinate and insolent, and Arthur still didn't know what on earth he had done in his previous life to be cursed with someone like him. Surely his other half should have been someone smarter and better looking and agreeable.

Arthur looked at Merlin, and then he said, "I'm not leaving my men here to die alone."

A feverish light flickered to life in Merlin's eyes, not quite hope. "I know. I can change that. I can change all of this. I just—You just need to say it, Arthur. Otherwise I'm not going to do it. I can't."

As Arthur hesitated and Merlin tried his best not to fidget, chewing on his bottom lip to remain silent, he wondered just how strong Merlin truly was. How far his magic rooted and reached.

Then he leaned closer, lined their faces and brushed Merlin's lips with his own as he spoke and breathed the words into his mouth. "Take me with you."

There was a weightless moment, suspended in a fraction of a second. And then Arthur could feel Merlin's elated smile against his mouth, down to his heart and bones, and Merlin surged forward, closed that last non-existent space between them as he buried his hands in Arthur's hair and kissed him deep. He laughed with abandon, and kissed Arthur again, and again, and again. And Arthur held onto him, feeling as if he could breathe for the first time in years. The world blurred and vanished in the edges, became nothing but dark and nothing but light as Merlin whisked them away, somewhere, sometime else.

To a place beyond gods.

Seconds, minutes, hours after a lone wind fluttered the entry of the tent, brought in a whirl of fine snow before the tent disappeared as if it had never been.

Then the wind howled once across the campground before that, too, vanished into air like nothing more than a dream.

Somewhere, far off, a coin fell, and spun, and came to a stop.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading :)


End file.
